Thornton Academy – AP Language 2018-2019 – Page 5 – News, notes and more than a few stories from our classroom.

April 3, 2019April 3, 2019

SAT

Liliana Sapiel- Blog post 13

The dreaded SAT’s are coming around the corner, the overachievers have been studying for months, the slackers studied for a day, and the freeloaders didn’t study at all. Although what stays the same for all students is the anxiety and fear of not being able to get into college if their SAT score isn’t high enough. Society tells us that the SAT score is what will determine what college we will get into, but society also pressures students to go to college. What society doesn’t tell us is that its OK not to go to college. College isn’t for everybody and there are other options and alternatives than just going straight to college after high school. Kid grow up being told that a test determines self worth, and a test determines your college, and college determines what job you get, and what job you get determines how much money you get, So theres this pressure/stigma associated with the SAT because students think the SAT plays a vital role in your life and almost determines what life you will have. The reality is that most students will never use the SAT test or skills in there life. Once students graduate high school their SAT score just becomes just a normal number that determines nothing, but thats reality. Students won’t use the SAT skills that they have been remembering for months. Students remember to forget. Stressing over the SAT’s in not worth it, its not worth your happiness. Students often confuse being happy in the moment with being stressed to be able to be happy in the future. Kids focus on the wrong things, they’re too focused on the future that they can live happily in the moment. In the moment is all we have and students should be taught to live in the moment just as much as living in the future.

April 3, 2019

History

Liliana Sapiel- blog post 12

Continuity and change, history is always changing, but always repeating itself. America’s history is always changing, but there are patterns in our history that just aren’t breaking. History is like a pendulum, it moves forward and swings one way, but it comes back to the same place it was. Of course history has progressed for the better, but there are patterns in our history that we repeat. For example reform, reform in America is about change but there have been multiple reform movements throughout history that have repeated the same reform movements, whether it be civil rights, women’s rights, or gay rights these reform movements keep occurring. The first reform era was the Antebellum reform period which focused on Abolition and the prohibition movement, following that era was the progressive era which focused on women rights, after that era was the Civil Rights movement. These Era’s all focus on the same issue in an effort to end them but they always repeat in history. When some radical ideas get introduced to society the pendulum swings far one way into those radical ideas but then the pendulum pulls back into old ways and continuity. History has a way of repeating its self, but it also has a way of learning and growing from each event that history repeats. History is like the saying “you learn from your mistakes”, but in this case its “you learn from your same mistakes”.

April 2, 2019

Gargoyle

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Peace, but with a drumming heart! The darkness, in her nightly mercy, covers you; she hides you, her child, but can bear it no longer when the murder of the sun rises, so haste! She begs you with the churning of the stars. Out of respect, or fear, or both, you obey, but caution fills your head, lest the slither of grasses and molding of wind caress you in gentle betrayal.

You look apon her: your goal, your enemy. She is no gracious queen; trenches deep with hissing water, though now defeated, whimper at the comparison of her stones. They are bold, calloused, impenetrable, binded together by broken hands and weeping men whom families and funerals have long forgotten. Her spired crown encases her many eyes, and in their protection they survey the kingdom. The eyes loom over all, sans love—plus pride, plus hate, plus indignation.

It is from them you refuse their gaze to meet. And you shall not, because you have calculated. Waited. Hated. Thought. Breathed.

Silence.

Nothing.

Something.

HELL!

It is your first thought when you snap upward toward its carved jaws—demon! Wrinkled, folded, bent towards you in perfect victory, crouching from the gate. Its hunched body, though in position for a pounced kill, knows its true infliction comes from within the deep, black infinity rested behind its teeth. From that infinity rises a slithering hiss, and from your heart: hopelessness.

And here it comes: the ooze, the shine, the glimmer. Brief beauty, dashed to shatters, by a single point upon your skin.

Pure, liquid hell seeps into your eyeballs and slithers down your throat. Disintegration flows into your very being, transforming you, becoming you. All you feel is hell. No, you are not there, not yet: the twisting burn will grant you no such mercy. No, there is no mercy, for this is religion pouring into your veins and replacing your blood. It searches, begging for your sins, clawing away at them in the passing of your bones, burning all till there is an absence of self, for your soul was deemed unworthy and it shall break you by the very kingdom you were built up. Under the mourning moon you disintegrate—not to ashes, but to pulp, as the nethlands pour from the heavens and boil you alive.

For this is the Roman Catholic Empire, and you have trespassed on holy ground.

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019

Time to Perform

The body, and the movements made throughout such foundations, muscles, nerves, and bones is truly a work of art. For those who can make such movements into something beautiful through the form of dance, I am, in simple words, amazed by. I have never truly masked how difficult making the body appear beautiful to an audience really was until I myself was asked to do so. Never truly being an adequate dancer myself, I never thought I’d be put in a position where I would have to “perform” in front of an audience, and at least look subpar to the amazing dancer surrounding me. Now that I have done so, I can truly say I am an awful dancer. Trying to do so many different movements of the body, within one count of eight is nearly impossible for my brain to function out. I cannot comprehend how people who know how to dance, and are a piece of art in doing so, manage. For my brain, the simple shimmy I was assigned to complete (in my one and only performance) , had my body flailing in all sorts of different directions, only resulting in the tripping over of my own two feet. Of course acquiring the right body movements is only one factor a dancer has to worry about when in front of the lights; not to mention, overcoming performance anxiety, criticism from the audience, and keeping in count with the music, a whole other stage, my mind is nowhere near ready to go near. After finding these results, I now am firmly aware, my presence is meant for the behind the scenes productions, and/or the audience. However, from here on, I will have no trouble in challenging such persons who believe the arts to be easy; for finding such accusations false, is as easy as putting one foot out on to that stage, and into the spot lights

Eve Holbrook

April 2, 2019

John Irving: Life and Accomplishments

John Irving is an American novelist, born on March 2, 1942 in Exeter, New Hampshire. As an author, Irving gained fame after the release of his fourth novel, The World According To Garp, in 1978. Since the release of his greatest hit, Irving has turned out 12 additional works, and continues to write to this day (even predicting the release of a new book for 2020.)

Irving, born John Wallace Blunt Jr, grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire with his mother and stepfather (whose last name he adopted at 6 years old.) As a child, he attended Phillips Exeter Academy and participated in the wrestling program as a student athlete and assistant coach. In college, Irving studied at UNH and later went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa, where he held a job as professor as he wrote his first three novels.

After The World According To Garp became a nationwide hit, Irving released several more best selling novels, including The Hotel New Hampshire, A Prayer For Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules. Irving has won an Oscar, the National Book Award, and two other literary awards for his writing and film adaptations of his novels. In total, Irving has released 19 literary works, most of them novels. A new novel, Darkness As A Bride, is set to be released in 2020.

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April 1, 2019

VCR

Liliana Sapiel- blog post 11

The videocassette recorder. The VCR the first major video recorder, which I was glued to for my whole childhood. Every thing I every watched was on a VHS (Video Home System). My first cartoon, on a VHS, my first birthday party, on a VHS, my favorite movie, on a VHS. Everything, recorded on a VHS and played on the VCR. It was a wonderful thing that was greatly under appreciated. The boxy rectangle, with the two holes in it and when you put your fingers in and spin it, it would get film all over the place. That’s the VHS I know. CD’s aren’t fun like that, you can’t physically see the whole movie on a film, its just a shiny disc that easily cracks if sat upon. VHS’s were durable, I could throw it, step on it, and even sit on it it wouldn’t break. I just wish I could go back to the simpler time where there were boxes for movies and boxes for T.V’s. VCR’s make me nostalgic of my past. The past of simpler times. The time I was able to watch the same VHS 5 times without getting board. Now I watch one thing on Netflix and there is all of a sudden nothing to watch. Don’t get me wrong, Netflix is pretty awesome, but I just wish life was more simple. Now I have too many options. I am grateful for those options, but sometimes I just want to live simple, just like a VCR.

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019

Homework

Liliana Sapiel- blog post 10

I have a lot of homework. Too much in fact. It’s all piling up beside me. I can practically swim in it. Homework is school work at home, but I already got work at home that doesn’t involve school and I’m struggling with that. I can barley handle business at home let alone all the homework that I get sent home with. School and my home life should be kept separate, its as say as that. If the school system can do that, then we should change the school system. There shouldn’t be a system where kids are forced to juggle two lives that are constantly overlapping each other. Maybe its inevitable to keep the two completely separate, but we can make the work load separate. During the day I put a lot of work into school, but once I get home, I want to live my life. I don’t need a bag of 10 pound books weighing me down all the time. Once I get home I take off my bag and I help my family whether its picking up an extra shift at work, babysitting my little sister, or cooking and cleaning, i’ll be there, ready to work. The worst feeling in the world is saying “sorry I can’t help you, I’ve got homework”. Whenever I say that I feel like I’m useless and when I get a bad grade or miss an assignment at school I feel even more useless. I couldn’t help out because of school and I am not doing my best in school. It a constant dilemma that many students face.

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019

Anger

Liliana Spapiel- blog post 8

Rapidly flowing through my veins like a raft flowing through the rapids getting carried every which way and rocking repeatedly back and fourth, up and down. Anger flows through my veins as my blood boils with resentment and overwhelming rage. I try not to scream as I punch the counter with my fists over and over and over again. Anger. Anger is a dangerous thing. As humans we try and contain our anger and not let it take over our bodies. Maybe once in our life time we let the anger get the best of us and we just go on a full out rage. Hitting our pillows, screaming into outr pillows, and even crying into our pillows. It happens. Its just all apart of life. We have our big fit and the next day we wake up and role out of bed and go back and face whatever the thing we were mad at. The reality of it all is that we can only get out true and raw anger only a few times in our lives. Humans society tells us that is not okay to show too much emotion and that if we do we’re hysterical, crazy, or dramatic. Society is what forces us into these breakdowns of complete rage. Yes, I am angry something, but I am also angry at all the tiny little things that I wasn’t able to be any about before. So why am I completely raging over a tiny little thing, well, its because of what has building up inside of me practically all of my entire life. I do get angry. I get really angry, but so does everybody else. It’s just part of being human.

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019

TA Civil Rights Day

Liliana Sapiel- Blog post 7

The Thornton Academy Civil Rights Day is a day celebrating and raising awareness to Civil Rights by wearing the colors for each part of Civil Rights; National Ancestory/Origin(green), Sexual Orientation(blue), Gender/ Gender Identity(purple), Race and Skin Color(pink), Disabilities(white), and Religion (red).The event will be held Thursday March 28th and a picture will be taken in the atrium. All lunch waves on Tuesday and Wednesday members from the TA Civil Rights Team will be collecting signatures for people who want to commit to wearing they’re color on Thursday. I encourage everyone to join in support/ raise awareness to or for what who believe in. Everybody deserves human rights and civil rights no matter what category they belong in. This event is your chance to show your and ally and supporter to Civil Rights. I believe it is important to make everyone at Thornton Academy feel safe and feel like they belong here and I am helping to organize this event for that reason. I have not always feel like I’ve belonged but one simple gesture of support can go a long way. Respect your peers, have compassion for your peers, invest in your peers, and show your responsibility to your community by support Civil Rights and wear your T-shirt. TA Civil rights Day is not only about supporting but showing your true colors and who your are and what color you identify with. By showing our true colors and learning to love ourselves we can truly respect other people and who they are as well. The TA Civil rights Team welcomes everyone and anyone and you should too.

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019

Japanese exchange

Liliana Sapiel- blog post 9

The Japanese exchange was this weekend and I hosted two students from Mesei high school in Tokyo Japan. They arrived on Friday and they shadowed me at school for the day and played games with us after school. My shadow buddy’s name was Sae, she was also my host partner for the weekend. Sae was shy at first but she was very funny and cute once I got to know her. My other host partner who stayed with me for the weekend was named Hononka. Honoka and Sae are best friends, they were nervous staying with me but were excited as well. The fist night they stayed with me they asked if they could sit on my couch. At first I though it was a weird question but then they told me that they don’t have sofas in Japan. When they sat on it they were mesmerized by the comfy pillow feel it had, but once they put on the recliner they started screaming in amazement. They never knew that a sofa could recline because they’ve never seen it in the American movies they watch. On the second day we took them to the Dryer library in Saco because they wanted to see something from the “old days”, which I thought was a rather odd request but nonetheless we went. Once we got there the first thing they did was pick up a piece newspaper and told me to take a picture of them holding it. They posed in the chairs right in front of the old fire place with there newspaper. For diner we went to Texas road house because they asked if they could eat stake. They never ate steak before either, but have seen it in pictures and in American movies. On the third day we went shopping in Freeport and the Maine Mall, they were really interested in cute things like Build-a-Bear and Claires. I noticed the cultural difference with American teenage girls and Japanese Teenage girls and how American girls are trying to look older and then there are Japanese girls who try and look cute almost child-like. Sae and Honoka showed me a popular Japanese app which makes your eyes look extremely big and watery, which I found extremely funny, but they thought it was cute. There is a cultural difference when it comes Japanese teenage girl’s appearances and hobbies when I comes to American teenage girls. Japanese girls are more cutesy and are into more cutesy stuff and American girls are all trying to look and act older than they are. I also noticed how much American movies and the Hollywood realm has influenced international culture and how they perceived Americans, which I think is funny. The best part about Hosting is being able to experience those little cultural differences and being able to show them a wonderful time around southern Maine.